Friday, September 23, 2011

When I first saw this short film, I wondered if I too would end a relationship over differences of opinion about overdevelopment. Probably. Anyway, this filmmaker has made overdevelopment and gentrification as personal as it will ever get.

I'm not sure why he cast a guy in the role of hero and his erstwhile girlfriend as villain, but I'm guessing it was just easier for him to identify with the situation than if the gender roles had been reversed. It is, after all, a personal short, first person, self-narrated. But that poor girl really gets read for trash.

If you watch, wait til you get to the images accompanying Whitman. It's beautiful New York, in black & white. If you like Ric Burns, enjoy. To object to beauty for its familiarity or sentiment is to allow cynicism too far a rein. Anyway, I'm a sucker for black & white.
Phil Vasquez' Song of Relations10 minutes

Friday, September 16, 2011

Yesterday the City Council Landmarks subcommittee voted to deny legal
landmark status to an 1817 townhouse on the Bowery, deferring to the
local councilmember, Margaret Chin, who says the owner, First American
International Bank, will provide a little affordable business space if
he's allowed to demolish it and redevelop the site into a new
seven-story building.

But Chin didn't get a written agreement from the owner or a community
benefits agreement, and she didn't research the surrounding sites,
particularly the ones on Chrystie Street, where the landmark's air
rights could have produced much more affordable space than in situ on the Bowery
and without destroying a historical site.

The councilmember didn't do
her homework to find and secure the best deal. Instead, she took the first offer of
the owner, without obtaining any guarantee that the community will get
anything. We're in a recession. In a moment of trouble, the bank might flip the site to someone else. How long will the affordable business space remain affordable? She can't tell us.

Merely having a good relationship with a supportive bank (for the creation of future
affordable housing, e.g.) is not enough for process and accountability.
Now she'll never know what opportunities were lost. But we know what
we'll lose -- yet another piece of the historical Bowery. The Bowery is a hot property right now. The new building will further
raise the real estate values of the entire strip. We can see where this
is going. She needs to raise the bar on her land use staff. A lot more work could have been done.

Chin has a long and distinguished career as a local affordable housing activist. But as councilmember, so far she's succeeded with this bank's development and with the BID, which happens to be promoted prominently by the same bank. Both accomplishments benefit business and development. Many, perhaps most, business owners in Chinatown don't actually live there or even have their headquarters there, so any indirect benefits for residents remain to be seen -- and indirect harm or secondary displacement also remain to be seen. This affair will tarnish her within her own neighborhood. That's a shame. It was unnecessary: all she needed was the homework.

Why is another landmark on the Bowery being threatened with demolition?135 Bowery
is a townhouse from
around 1817, one of the oldest in New York. The Landmarks Preservation
Commission has already designated it as a historical landmark. But the
local
councilmember, Margaret Chin, has reversed her support for the landmark
on the grounds that the owner, a bank, wants to replace it with a
taller structure promising a bit of affordable commercial space. Without
the councilmember's support, the City Council will likely not vote the
designation into protective law.

The bank that owns 135 Bowery hasn't submitted its affordable
intention in writing. The bank hasn't shown any affordable rent rates;
the bank hasn't produced any legally binding contract for this promised
affordable commercial space or any indication how long the leases would
remain affordable, or even any binding document whatsoever
showing their intent. All we have is the word of the bank. (What do you
think that's worth?)

I would be happy to see, for example, an SRO hotel on the Bowery for recent immigrants
to live in cheap but safe quarters. But I would be a great fool if I
sacrificed a historic site for an SRO promised to me by a bank without any documentation or plan or legally binding contract or even any detailed information.

So I wonder who is being fleeced by this bank? Is the Councilmember being fleeced? Or is it the public?

I
will testify at the Council hearing on behalf of 135 Bowery, because I
know that the owner-bank, far from intending to give back to the
community, wants to get the most out of his investment regardless of the
community, history, the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the City
Council, the Councilmember, or anyone but themselves. They've made no
commitment, let's be real. The only commitment has been verbal to the
Councilmember, and we don't have a binding document of that discussion.

The
Bowery Alliance of Neighbors say they want to fill the chamber with
support. They also ask for more signatures on their petition. The 135 Bowery petition again.

St. Mark's Bookstore

The
great used bookstores of New York, with their overstuffed chairs,
chatty patrons and patiently listening bookdealers, were places to hang
and enjoy, not just for browse-and-buy. The ones in this neighborhood were truly worth saving,
and they are all truly gone. Should St. Mark's Bookstore be saved?

I have made my peace with the twenty-somethings that are the present
and future of this neighborhood. For better or worse, like it or not,
they have transformed this place in their own image and it now belongs
to them, from their dorms to our tenements to their BMW Lab. But the
young are mostly transient, so they are mostly unequipped to restrain
the powerful market force they themselves have brought here. Yes, they
want nightlife, but they probably would also like to have a good
bookstore, and the monster real estate market they've fed now won't
allow it. It's about to swallow up the bookstore and leave, well, you
know the story.

Cooper Union owns the site of the St. Mark's Bookstore, one
of the few interesting bookstores in town. CU is raising its rent beyond
the store's capacity to pay. CU, of course, can afford to give back to
the community. Peter Cooper himself was all about giving back to the
community. Peter must have long ago tired of spinning in his grave over
what has become of his life's dream, free higher education for the
working class. How many ways can Cooper Union spell "betrayal"? Surely
they're not hurting for this little commercial space: they own the land
on which the Chrysler building stands and the glass building on Astor
Place. Seems to me they ought to buy up shares of the store and expand
it as a university-community bookstore. But they'd probably betray that
as well.

Frankly, I'm not convinced this neighborhood deserves to have a great bookstore. The
NYU students have their own bookstore, filled with all the books they
need and more than they can handle. As for the rest of the neighborhood,
this place is a youth destination for children of means, not an intellectual or countercultural
destination anymore. Its heart is commerce now, not anarchy. Freedom must be purchased, and it exacts many prices.

Maybe saving St. Mark's Bookstore is an exercise in
anachronism or sentimental nostalgia. But if you'd like to try to
preserve St. Mark's Bookstore for the benefit of the future transient
youth of this neighborhood, here's a petition for you.